Posted
by
Soulskill
on Saturday June 20, 2009 @05:40AM
from the no-word-on-left-4-dead-3 dept.

Valve has announced details of an update to Left 4 Dead that is due out next week. To start, the SDK open beta is over, and the final version is being released. They're also adding a framework for easily sharing player-created content, accessible through the menu system in-game. In addition to that, they're revamping the matchmaking system to accommodate custom campaigns (like this Resident Evil 3 mod). Quoting:
"Content authors will be able to package up their new maps, along with new posters, models, and textures, into a single .VPK file. To install and activate this content in-game, players need simply download the .VPK and double click on it. ... When creating or searching for a lobby, a new option named 'Add-on campaign' will let you select from among the add-on campaigns that you have installed. You can then find games or lobbies as well as create a lobby for that campaign. You can invite your friends, too. If they do not have the campaign installed, they will automatically be offered and an option to download it."

They managed 2 make Left 4 dead 1 a legend within 3 days. Don't 4get that it was a 1derful, remarkable 6ess. A lot of zombies 8 brainz. It's 4 this reason that Left 4 dead 2 is being pushed out 2 months after Left 4 Dead 1 reached market sa2ration. Maybe they'll throw you a reb8 if you bought Left 4 Dead 1, but don't expect them 2 just hand it over to every1.

Well, if it is compatible, they are releasing free content creators for a game that's not out until november. That's pretty amazing isn't it? Won't that mean that L4D2 will skyrocket in popularity if the amount of official and fan content is staggering when put together?

They're bothering because this is exactly the kind of support they promised for Left4Dead.

Let go of the silly nerdrage, you''re blinded by it.

Everyone expected more content from _Valve_. More campaigns, more survival maps and only thing L4D seems to get is Tools for community to make their own campaigns and survival maps so that Valve can concentrate for L4D2 instead.

However, the L4D2 Boycott group [steamcommunity.com] on Steamcommunity (that has around 18% of people compared to the official L4D Group) made Valve to change their mind. Now they promise more content for Left 4 Dead, the original one and promised not to ditch it when L4D2 is out.

TF2 has gotten a lot more content since and so did CS Source too. In the first year of their release, there was amazing count of new maps for these games and new features. L4D is way behind in the schedule.

TF2 was 11 years in the making. CS Source leveraged from the original CS. Both were based upon mods, so I do find the "mods aren't good enough" bit absurd when the premium professional products compared aren't far removed.

So that's what this is really about I'd say. Time versus money. I'd rather pay $100 in two years to get full content than wait a decade. Of course, it's human nature for most people to want it all, timely and cheap / free. But the expectations aren't reasonable when the release schedule, u

Eh, kinda. Rebooting your tech two or three times and then redoing the entire thing from scratch two years before launch doesn't really count as 11 years in development. As someone who followed all the news on TF2 over the years... it's nothing like what it was originally supposed to be - a commander class to organize attacks, people cooperating to fire machine guns, a realistic approach to graphics, etc. While all these things are probably inferior to what they actually relea

Valve is still one of the few companies that puts out full SDKs not only for mods for their engine, but pretty much every game they make on it as well-- Yet it's they're getting much appreciation, at least not by the comments above, and I expect some below as well. It makes me wonder why they bother, although I for one am really glad that they do.

Usually my complaint is that sequels take too long to come out, so I'm a bit at odds with those that are complaining a year is too soon. Seriously? A year = timely.

They're not going to get much appreciation, because while custom levels are a nice thing to have, they're not high on the list of problems people have with L4D1. There's a good Yahtezeeism from his review of Little Big Planet [escapistmagazine.com] that drives this point home:

If a game that stands up by itself wants to release level design and modding tools, than Brillo Bananas: good modding communities are the sprinkling of cinnamon on a delicious trifle and hence relying on user made content is like eating heaped spoonfuls of cinnamon right from the jar. I don't want to have to wade through waste-high rendering runoff to get to the good levels, especially when I can do that by just playing the story mode: you know, the levels designed by professional fucking level designers. If I buy a house, I want an architect to design it. If I design it myself, it may have a more personal touch, but it's going to fall over very fast and even if it doesn't the giant fiberglass breasts on the front will be very tacky and the neighbors will complain when the gingerbread garage starts to smell.

L4D1 is not yet "a game that stands up by itself" like HL2 or TF2 are. It was $50 and shipped short of content that was promised by Valve [videogamer.com] but instead rolled in to L4D2. Most people don't want modding tools at this point, they want enough professionally developed content to finish the game - something that satisfies players' baser needs. Then, if the game were finished, the modding tools would be a great addition to get even more out of the game.

So no, you're not going to find a ton of appreciation for Valve releasing the SDK. User made content is not a replacement for true professional content, particularly content Valve said they were going to give out long, long ago.

Don't get me wrong. I've enjoyed countless hours on L4D. However I also bought the game based on promises that Valve has shown they can deliver on in the past. And with those games in the past, they didn't release an immediate sequel to them a fucking year later. L4D is stale now, so it doesn't matter how many modding tools they release. They never updated the game fast enough with content. Bug fixes? Sure, they did all of that, but that's already to be expected. If they had released a few new campaigns sooner, well, maybe there won't be this overwhelming bitterness being felt a lot of people.

Bug fixes? Sure, they did all of that, but that's already to be expected.

I disgaree, when selecting a quick match game it still boots you back to the main menu saying that the auto selected game is "full". It would take 5 seconds to code if (gamefull) { quickmatch(); } or something similar for when you hit the quick match button but here we are still lots of lame clicking.

The last update has screwed up the game for me. A fix that makes rendering better for Multicore machines has given me a problem where eve

If i would have mod points, i would put you up in the sky with them. You said everything so well that i was gonna say.

While i know community mappers will have tons of good campaings on the works, they will not reach the same level of quality as Valve maps are for a quite a while. Professional is always a professional.

That link contains nothing but Gabe Newell describing exactly what they've done. Community support, SDK, the occasional gamemode and map tweaks.He talks about TF2 as an example, but did you think they were adding classes to L4D?

I'd be more inclined to agree with you if you had some specific promises that weren't met, or like many (many, many) other games that are bug ridden and missing significant features shown during pre-release. Left4Dead is nearly exactly what they described, so if you were let down, I don't know what game you thought you were buying.

If we were discussing the merits of the game and you didn't like it, I could accept that just fine. It's the premise about unmet promises that's bogus. List something concrete, otherwise you're just tossing rhetoric about your own failed expectations.

The game sold well, got good reviews and is currently played by many. If you didn't like it, fine, write a review, but stop with the high and mighty broken promises thing, it's just childish.

I'm gonna have to be the one guy who disagrees I guess. In my opinion, L4D is already worth the cost - it is a genuinely novel game idea that was VERY well implemented. There are some very minor issues, but none that have gotten in the way of it being immensely fun and not growing old at all.

I don't recall any promises by Valve to add twice as much content to L4D and give it all away for free. L4D was an excellent and complete game upon launch and well worth the cost.

If you didn't like L4D or enjoy the replayability of the extremely well-designed game rules and levels, that's OK. You're probably also not one of the people who played CS and CS:S for a decade with over half of that time being spent in Dust, Dust2, and Office.

L4D is about well-designed and replayable multiplayer game rules and m

As the article states, the beta for the SDK was already available, so that's what people have been using to develop maps. No need for alternative methods, it's mostly the same SDK. You can download it directly from Steam and follow additional information from their Wiki: http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Authoring_Tools/SDK_(Left_4_Dead)